Her fits of passion, which are awful to behold, and are usually called teething, are no such thing; they are her natural exasperation, because we don't understand her, though she is talking an intelligible language.

My little Alice is backward in teething, not having yet achieved her eye or stomach teeth, and backward, I think, too, in talking, though she is beginning to string her words together, and makes her will and wishes distinctly and imperatively understood.

After howls from the company and vigorous pushback by Ohio officials, however, the agency postponed its final application review to allow USEC more time to fix what the company euphemistically called "teething problems."

"Since 2003 will usher in the tenth year of the new dispensation, there are several matters than can no longer be described as teething problems or growing pains but that require urgent action," he said in a statement written in Afrikaans.